After a blowout loss to Villanova in the Penn State women's basketball season opener last week, head coach Rene Portland hopes that a road trip will clear her players' minds and get them focused on the task at hand -- the 2001-2002 season.

Portland and her young squad will travel to the West Coast to take on UC-Santa Barbara at 10 p.m. The Lions will then make the trek to Honolulu, Hawaii to take on Florida Atlantic at 5:30 p.m. on Friday in the first round of the Rainbow Wahine Classic.

"Obviously this is an exciting road trip," Portland said. "So many of our players have not been to California or been to Hawaii and played under those conditions."

Portland hopes that the new surroundings and pleasant weather will clear the heads of several Lions, especially sophomore guard and co-captain Kelly Mazzante. The Montoursville native had an uncharacteristic showing in the team's opener last week and was obviously still suffering the effects of a blow to the head received in practice. Mazzante, who led the Lady Lions and the Big Ten Conference with 18.2 points per game last year, contributed just six points Friday on 3-for-11 shooting.

Mazzante was not the only Lion to offer a poor showing in the team's first game. Penn State's inexperienced defenders struggled with Villanova's half-court offense and allowed 27 Wildcat three-point attempts, an area Portland had stressed in practice leading up to the game. Now, her team will get its first chance to show improvement.

The first hurdle will be a UC-Santa Barbara squad that returns three starters from last season and is picked to win their sixth straight Big West Conference title. The Gauchos are an inexperienced bunch just like the Lions, and both teams' rosters feature 10 freshmen and sophomores. Portland said that she hopes the youth-dominated game will be similar to the Lions' victory over another young team last year, Purdue.

"We're going to a very similar team against UC-Santa Barbara and so we have to see what freshman and sophomore class is better," Portland said.

"That's what we did when we played Purdue last year. They had a bunch of freshmen last year and so did we, and we just matched up against them real well."

The Lions' mettle will again be tested in the Hawaii tournament as they try to get past Florida Atlantic in their first round matchup. Portland thinks her squad has a good chance in the Classic, which also includes Minnesota, Oklahoma State, Hawaii, Weber State, Wyoming and ninth-ranked Stanford.

Perhaps more importantly than winning the tournament, Portland hopes the extended road trip will bring her team together as a unit.

"It better, or it's going to be a long week," Portland said. "This team is very close off the court. We need to take that closeness off the court and put it on the court."